``He's one of my heroes,'' said his coach Joanne McLeod. ``This was his first year in senior against the big guys, he's dealing with an injury that he had to his calf, and he's been very sort of not letting people know about it. But he fought through, he didn't have 100 per cent full strength at the start of the week, so I'm extremely proud of him.''

Nguyen suffered a cut to his calf muscle that required 10 stitches when collided with Vancouver skater Jeremy Ten in practice just over a week ago.

``The pain was like terrible, but thankfully my parents, they were doctors before, and they gave me a couple of exercises to prevent the pain coming back,'' Nguyen said. ``And here I am, talking to you guys.''

etaa: The article and others recent write ups make it sound like Nam and Patrick just met for the first time but it ain't so.

You are taking my words out of context. All I said was "Daisuke didn't get over 200 in his LP" with no mentions or implications of PChan's performance and interpretation being "crappy" (it was very good). But I see where "let's talk" is coming from, for a performance "worth" 200 points, some of the landings were not the cleanest. And also, I am not still not buying Patrick's interpretation of the music....he doesn't seem to "feel" the music, rather skates to the music instead. If Daisuke scored over 200 points with his National LP...boy, that would stirr a lot of controversy. But Daisuke won on the merit of his SP - brilliant performance, and not this LP alone (he was only ranked third).

@jettasian, don't understand why you have to be so defensive....you just jumped to conclusions.

Interpretation is subjective. I find Dai's interpretation is usually over the top, everything is dramatic and screaming for attention. You call that "artistic", I call that "eye-rolling". Chan's interpretation is just more subtle. Again, it's just personal taste. But to use that to un-justify Chan's score shows the desperation.

And I wasn't defensive nor jumping to conclusion. Chan getting 200 has nothing to do with other skaters. If the judges thought he deserved it, they gave it to him. Yet, some think that since Dai didn't get it, Chan shouldn't either. If he got it, it gotta be inflated blah blah blah the same old crap.

LOL!!! Over 200 with a bunch of crappy landings and no Hispanic character in the performance/interpretation.

Well, this is the men's division, not ice dance. You won't see many men trying to distinguish a tango-like quad from a waltzy quad.

Originally Posted by Blades of Passion

I don't yet see unbridled passion or a unique viewpoint in terms of expression, though, and there is still plenty to criticize about how the movements are designed to garner points rather than go to the music or form a complete whole.

I don't think we will ever see a Natalie Portman as the Black Swan type performance from Patrick. I think he is more like Michelle Kwan. Michelle just wanted the audience to be as tickled over her performances as she was. "You don't love me yet? Well then check this out!"

Is it official that he will attend the 4CC? That might not be a good idea, I think. He beat Dai psychologically with his great performances at the last year's National. I think this year's performances could achieve the same effect on his competitors. He could gain little but lose a lot at 4CC. Don't go, Patrick.

Considering the altitude at Colorado Springs (over 6000 feet above sea level) and the 15 hours time difference (jet lag) that Takahashi has to deal with whereas Chan would essentially be competing "at home" with no travel required, the Japanese Champion will have to be in exceptional condition to overcome his subpar performance at his Nationals and do better at the 4CC.

Win or lose, men's competition is always hard to predict - this isn't Ice Dance. Just because a World Champion didn't win every single event he/she enters is quite pointless in using that to predict the outcome of the next competition. Not sure what you think why Chan could lose a lot at 4CC? If he got beaten by someone, somehow that will hurt him the long-run??? I don't think such thought is warranted. If he got beaten, it can only mean he didn't skate his best, that's all. On the other hand, with very little expenses to incur for this event, he could pocket some nice prize $$$, which would be worth a lot of bus rides in LA.

Why should I have? Dai didn't get 300 and he lost to two other competitiors in FS, thanks to his mistakes. I said I was very disappointed.

You may have forgot what you wrote in the Japanese Nationals thread re: Men, but I haven't. Any mention of Chan there was immediately called out by you as either OT or not belonging to there. Or those threads are supposed to be "positive" about Japanese skaters and any criticism is an affront to the "beautiful skaters". Well, you brought up Japanese and Russian skaters in the Canadian Men SP thread and continued to bash Chan and only Chan in the Men LP thread. :sheesh: Care to discuss why you have such blatant double standard or do I need to actually go dig up and quote all those "beautiful admonishment" you made in the Japanese National threads and copy them here?

Agreed, given that Smith didn't actually use any quotes. Ignoring that, Stoijko was the first guy to do a quad combo and quad-triple combo, so respect that. He did bust down some major technical barriers.

You may have forgot what you wrote in the Japanese Nationals thread re: Men, but I haven't. Any mention of Chan there was immediately called out by you as either OT or not belonging to there. Or those threads are supposed to be "positive" about Japanese skaters and any criticism is an affront to the "beautiful skaters". Well, you brought up Japanese and Russian skaters in the Canadian Men SP thread and continued to bash Chan and only Chan in the Men LP thread. :sheesh: Care to discuss why you have such blatant double standard or do I need to actually go dig up and quote all those "beautiful admonishment" you made in the Japanese National threads and copy them here?

S/he's just troll. I think most likely his/her fave may have a hard time beating Chan, thus the anger directs at Chan.

Originally Posted by ImaginaryPogue

Agreed, given that Smith didn't actually use any quotes. Ignoring that, Stoijko was the first guy to do a quad combo and quad-triple combo, so respect that. He did bust down some major technical barriers.

It doesn't matter that he was the first to do a quad. Someone had started a triple years before him. Someone has to start something first. His comment sounds like he still thinks he's better than everyone